How do you mend a broken heart?

Scientists are trying to mend broken hearts

Heart disease is a massive health problem. In the UK, 125,000
people suffer a heart attack each year. Of these, over 5% will die
within 30 days.

What causes heart disease?

Human hearts are a powerful muscle, beating around three billion
times over a lifetime. Heart attacks happen when an artery becomes
blocked. Blood, oxygen and nutrients can't get to part of the
heart, causing some of the heart muscle to die. Without as much
heart muscle, the heart can't beat as powerfully.

Your heart is a powerful
muscle

How can we mend a broken heart?

One of the major barriers to curing human heart disease is that
damaged heart tissue doesn't have the ability to repair itself.
Scientists are working on ways to solve this problem.

Protein power

Researchers say that they may have developed a pill which
persuades heart tissue to repair itself after a heart attack.

Thymosin beta 4 is a type of protein that scientists are looking
at. It persuades stem cells in the heart to produce heart cells.
Stem cells are a special type of cell that can turn into lots of
different cell types, but in adults stem cells are generally
switched off. Encouraging stem cells to make heart cells will help
to repair the heart muscle and allow the heart to pump powerfully
again.

Scientists are investigating a
protein that could help make new heart tissue

So far this technique has only been tested on mice, but trials
in humans are due to begin over the next few years.

If the human trials are successful, pills containing thymosin
beta 4 could be given to patients at risk of a heart attack. If
these patients suffered a heart attack, stem cells in the heart
would be prepared to repair muscle tissue.

Spray-on heart

Another possibility for curing heart disease is a "spray-on
heart". Researchers have discovered that they can spray different
types of heart cells onto a protein scaffold. The cells stick on
the protein scaffold and grow to form small sections of heart
tissue. Eventually, researchers want to create sheets of heart
tissue big enough to repair a damaged heart.

As with thymosin beta 4, more trials are needed to make sure the
technique is safe to use in humans.

Will scientists one day solve the problem of how to mend a
broken heart? Their recent ground-breaking work has made a
promising start.

Try our heart quiz and find out how much you know about your
heart.

I'm sorry, it appears you do not have flash installed.

Curriculum information

Summary

Heart disease is a major killer. Find out how stem cells and growing new heart tissue may be a treatment in the future.